What Went Wrong With Atlanta Attendance?

Is Ross Chastain’s poor reputation irreversible?

In the July 2018 NASCAR Cup Series race at Daytona International Speedway, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. caused two big crashes and was involved in a further three crashes in what put together was an embarrassing night.

He became the butt of many jokes, and his reputation as a reckless driver that causes accidents still lingers on in the present day.

After his performance at Atlanta Motor Speedway last weekend, Ross Chastain may be reaching the reckless reputation without a chance to go back.

The reality is that the number of drivers that Chastain has angered this season cannot be counted on one hand. At Circuit of the Americas, he spun out AJ Allmendinger on the final lap to win. At Richmond Raceway, he had a heated feud with Ryan Blaney in the middle of the race while battling for position. At Dover Motor Speedway, Martin Truex Jr. crashed on the final lap while racing for third after Chastain slammed the door on him down the backstretch. At World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway, Chastain wrecked both Denny Hamlin and Chase Elliott in the first third of the race.

And now at Atlanta, Chastain crashed Truex (again), sparking a big crash early in the race. Plus, in the closing laps, he wrecked Hamlin (also again). This does not even count the drivers collected in these incidents who were also upset.

Now, it can be argued that some of the incidents were racing deals or unavoidable.

But when they’ve happened this frequently in a span of 14 races, it’s a pattern.

The breaking point appeared to be at Gateway, where Hamlin and Elliott played games to hold him up whenever they ran beside him on the racetrack. Chastain was incredibly apologetic in his interview, and he said that he needed to stop making the same mistakes.

But making the same mistakes twice at Atlanta, Chastain’s Gateway apology lost its meaning. To make matters worse, he dumped Hamlin, the one driver that he did not need to run into again. Now it appears that Hamlin will seek future retaliation.

It will take a long time for Chastain’s image in the garage to rehab, and that’s only if he keeps his nose clean and avoids running into other drivers for the remainder of the year. If he continues to be involved in future incidents, the drivers will not feel afraid to take matters into their own hands.

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